Michigan wins the WCWS!

Metz · Post by **Metz** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 11:14 am

Mich. stopped the 7th seeded UCLA from 3-peating last night in an amazing game! Michigan destroyed us when they came here to play earlier in the season and was #1 pretty much the whole year. I believe they ended up around 64-5 which is just insane! As a team, they hit over 100 homeruns on the season. To put that in perspective, we hit around 15-20 a season.

I don't know if anyone else watches college softball but it's a great sport and moves fast. However, 5 games over the whole world series went into extra innings so some of the games were pretty long. Teams like Arizona and Texas were leaving their pitchers in for 14 innings straight and then having them start again during the night games. That's throwing close to 250 a day which has to be killer considering their speeds are still in the mid 60s in the later innnings. Overall, this was a great series with some big upsets!

Someone asked me the other day if I ever thought BG could make the WCWS. I honestly believe we could this coming year but our girls need to get the bats going. I was talking to the assistant coach the other day and he even said we just weren't producing this year. We are going to have 3 pitchers next year who are all amazing...maybe we'll have a rotation! If our ladies start making contact, we could easily take down the MAC and a lot of the NCAA.

UK Peregrine · Post by **UK Peregrine** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 11:35 am

I casually watched that game last evening at a bar here in Lexington after our softball game. It was a damn good game. I was impressed. What an outstanding way to essentially win the WCWS on a 3-run bomb in the top of the 10th. It's nice to see Michigan get their first title, but even nicer that UCLA did not win it all again. I did see that in seven previous trips to the CWS, Michigan's record was 2-14, which makes their championship run even more impressive.

Metz · Post by **Metz** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 11:48 am

UK Peregrine wrote:I casually watched that game last evening at a bar here in Lexington after our softball game. It was a damn good game. I was impressed. What an outstanding way to essentially win the WCWS on a 3-run bomb in the top of the 10th. It's nice to see Michigan get their first title, but even nicer that UCLA did not win it all again. I did see that in seven previous trips to the CWS, their record was 2-14, which makes their championship run even more impressive.

Yeah, and UCLA 3-peated back towards the end of the 90's. They didn't need to do it again. Back when UCLA won those 3 in a row, Stacey Nuveman played for them 1 or 2 of the years. She has the all-time NCAA HR record with 90 in her career. They had some other big names and talent then, too, obviously.

I don't know how I feel about the championship going to a best-of-3 series though. Normally it would have been done when UCLA won the first game because that would have been Michigan's 2nd loss of the tourney. If Michigan won the first game, they would have had to beat UCLA again the next day to win the title so I guess it keeps it does keep it fair for the teams that make it to the championship.

golfertk14 · Post by **golfertk14** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 6:14 pm

I'm a Buckeyes fan so of course I rooted for UCLA. Beyond that I really liked watching the WCWS this year; it's interesting to see baseball played without an elevated mound, with a bigger ball, and one amazing way to pitch the ball.

I'd definetly watch it again in '06.

Metz · Post by **Metz** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 6:20 pm

golfertk14 wrote:it's interesting to see baseball played without an elevated mound, with a bigger ball, and one amazing way to pitch the ball.

Did you watch the same thing? I didn't see any baseball being played. Baseball and softball are two completely different games. Softball is all about smallball...learn your sports.

fredthefalcon · Post by **fredthefalcon** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 7:04 pm

This AM on one of the Sports Radio shows in Detroit, they were doing a usual bit asking the listeners to call in and say if you could do a specific athletic feat. In the past, an example was score from the one in an NFL game. Today it was hit Jenny Ritter or some other WSSB pitcher. Actually I never heard too many callers because one of the hosts was adamant he could hit her and a caller volunteer to test him with his 16 yr daughter HS pitcher. What do you guys think. Could you hit a WS SB or Olympic SB pitcher?

UK Peregrine · Post by **UK Peregrine** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 7:55 pm

fredthefalcon wrote:This AM on one of the Sports Radio shows in Detroit, they were doing a usual bit asking the listeners to call in and say if you could do a specific athletic feat. In the past, an example was score from the one in an NFL game. Today it was hit Jenny Ritter or some other WSSB pitcher. Actually I never heard too many callers because one of the hosts was adamant he could hit her and a caller volunteer to test him with his 16 yr daughter HS pitcher. What do you guys think. Could you hit a WS SB or Olympic SB pitcher?

Jennie Ritter had some pretty good stuff last night. Back in my baseball prime, I'm sure I could have hit her. We played our high school girls' team and it was not problem hitting the softball off a pitcher who eventually went on to pitch at OSU. But then again she only went to OSU and not to UM. Hitting today though is another story, it would definitly be a challenge. It's all about timing and I'm sure my timing for fast-pitch softball would take sometime to get back. I'd rather face Jenny Finch, but then I'd really have no chance, because I wouldn't be watching the ball.

Metz · Post by **Metz** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 8:01 pm

They say a 65 mph (or similar) is equal to a 90 mph fastball in baseball in terms of reaction time. Standing close to 40 feet from the pitcher and seeing a ball come in at 60+ mph has to be tough. A fastpitch softball swing is similar to a golf swing where as a slowpitch swing is more like a baseball swing. Your arm and shoulder have to stay low to get good contact and chances are, I'd end up swining under the ball...especially if it was a riser. Some of these girls were throwing 68 mph in the th inning still..eek! I really doubt I could hit that but I'm sure I could hit the 50 mph change-ups though!!

BGALUMNI · Post by **BGALUMNI** » Thu Jun 09, 2005 11:37 pm

Metz wrote:
golfertk14 wrote:it's interesting to see baseball played without an elevated mound, with a bigger ball, and one amazing way to pitch the ball.

Did you watch the same thing? I didn't see any baseball being played. Baseball and softball are two completely different games. Softball is all about smallball...learn your sports.

Metz...the guy is a die hard Ohio State fan...what do you expect? At first he thought he was watching women's golf until he realized the ball was too big and people were running.

Jacobs4Heisman · Post by **Jacobs4Heisman** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 9:03 am

A great softball pitcher is worlds easier to hit than a decent baseball pitcher. back in hs, I hit against our softball team's ace. She could throw 65, had all the movement of the pitchers I saw in the WCWS, and went on to be a star at west point. I also hit many times against our baseball team's ace and played second base behind him for 3 years. He could hit 88 on the gun with cut action and was a lefty. He went on to pitch at northern alabama. I've seen 95 MPH fastballs from 6-10 alabama boys and japanese kids throwing sushi splitters that drill holes in the plate.

Hitting against the softball pitcher was about 3 times easier than the comparable baseball pitcher. These girls are great at what they do and all, but being a hardcore baseball player and fan, I just can't be entertained by softball. It was fun watching Michigan hit the three run bomb in the 10th but if Michigan hadn't been playing, I turn the channel to BBTN.

An interesting note, UM was the first team from east of the mississippi to win the WCWS.

And the next person that calls it baseball gets a riseball in the clavicle.

rollalong94 · Post by **rollalong94** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 9:09 am

UK Peregrine wrote:
fredthefalcon wrote:This AM on one of the Sports Radio shows in Detroit, they were doing a usual bit asking the listeners to call in and say if you could do a specific athletic feat. In the past, an example was score from the one in an NFL game. Today it was hit Jenny Ritter or some other WSSB pitcher. Actually I never heard too many callers because one of the hosts was adamant he could hit her and a caller volunteer to test him with his 16 yr daughter HS pitcher. What do you guys think. Could you hit a WS SB or Olympic SB pitcher?
Jennie Ritter had some pretty good stuff last night. Back in my baseball prime, I'm sure I could have hit her. We played our high school girls' team and it was not problem hitting the softball off a pitcher who eventually went on to pitch at OSU. But then again she only went to OSU and not to UM. Hitting today though is another story, it would definitly be a challenge. It's all about timing and I'm sure my timing for fast-pitch softball would take sometime to get back. I'd rather face Jenny Finch, but then I'd really have no chance, because I wouldn't be watching the ball.

Did you see this article?
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/ ... id=2080969

UK Peregrine · Post by **UK Peregrine** » Fri Jun 10, 2005 9:33 am

rollalong94 wrote: Did you see this article?
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/ ... id=2080969

No, but I did watch the TWIB stuff when the Jennie Challenge was going from Major League stadium to stadium last season. The clip with Bonds from last season was hilarious and you can watch it at the link below along with a few other clips of Jennie and some Major Leaguers. Not only does Jennie throw a fastball that is equivalent to the high nineties, she also throws like five pitches. Plus, the scenery factor is a hugh distractor on top of some nasty pitching.

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/video ... content=04